Sweet Design
by SilverKovu
Summary: Raph and Mikey just so happen to be in the same art class. Mikey has no problem when it comes to creativity. And Raph, well, he's on the verge of punching through several canvases. - Human AU. Quadruplets.


It was finally 2:00 p.m., an hour away from the end of the school day, and Raph was bracing himself for his last class. His left hand was clenched tightly around his water bottle in an attempt to clear the small pit of anxiety forming in his chest, and he was purposely dragging his feet along the carpeted hallway to put off his arrival for as long as possible. It was ridiculous to be this nervous about a stupid art class. Most people, his brother especially, liked art because it was the one class where you didn't have to take notes or listen to a teacher lecture for hours on end. Raph enjoyed that aspect of the class as much as the next guy. What he didn't like was the actual art making process. He could never decide what to draw and he was clueless when it came to deciding what media to use.

Raph would never admit it but he was relieved that Mikey was in the same class as him. Whenever he was frustrated to the point of chucking his eraser across the room, Mikey would calmly slide over, erase the problem area, and redraw it for him. Sometimes he would even work on Raph's drawing for half the class to give him a head start. The teacher, Mrs. Higgins, hated it when students tried to help each other, which was total BS. She wanted students to come to her for help, and when they didn't, she would get all huffy and say,

"Who's the one with an art degree? Me. I'm qualified to help you."

Raph wanted to loosen her teeth every time she parroted that phrase to the class. It made his blood boil and he could almost _feel_ it when Mikey rolled his eyes at her. Degree his ass. Mrs. Higgins's art consisted of melting hearts colored in various patterns and colors. She said it was part of a collection that she had been working on for months. Raph thought her work belonged in a gallery for preschool kids. He became increasingly confused when Mikey showed him some paintings done by Jackson Pollock and explained that the guy was famous just for dripping colors onto a canvas. After that, Raph didn't question what made a piece of art good or bad. None of it made sense to him in the slightest.

His green eyes roamed over the student paintings that hung in the school gallery before they landed on the twin art room doors. He heaved a loud sigh and made himself go in before he chickened out and hid in the vending machine room. The room was nearly filled by the time he settled in his chair with his self portrait and graphite pencils. There was about fifteen students in this class and Raph wasn't really friends with any of them. Acquaintances, sure. They all kind of bonded over their shared hatred of Mrs. Higgins, who was suspiciously absent from the room. Usually she was still helping another student from the class before and was always lurking around the room. Not that Raph was complaining. Less time spent around her meant less of a headache for him.

It was about five minutes later when Mikey and Mrs. Higgins entered the room. Mikey raced ahead of her and slid into the seat on Raph's right. He nudged their shoulders together to get Raph's attention and widened his blue eyes in a dramatic motion to convey that Mrs. Higgins was being crazy. Which was nothing new, really. The woman kind of lived in her own world and was almost a stereotypical ditzy blond. Raph felt like he was talking to a delusional fairy every time Mrs. Higgins made conversation with him. She was a real fruit loop.

"Dude, how'd the history test go?" Mikey asked. He obviously had come from fitness because he hadn't changed out of his basketball shorts and an elastic headband was buried beneath his blond hair. He also happened to smell like Raph's deodorant.

"It was all essay questions so it was a real bitch," Raph said. "Did you steal my gym bag out of my locker?"

Not that he was surprised or anything. Mikey practically never remembered to bring his work out clothes to school. More often than not he would just borrow clothes from him or Leo, even though he was the smallest out of all of them and was usually swallowed by their baggy shirts.

Mikey groaned and rested his head against his forearm. Raph carefully moved his self portrait out of the way before Mikey's sweaty fingers could stain the paper.

"Ugh, I'll just steal Don or Leo's notes. Except they're probably way ahead of us since they're in APUSH," Mikey said.

Raph snorted. "Or you could just, you know, use your own notes."

"Puh-lease," Mikey rolled his eyes, "you actually think I was paying attention when there was a new Triceraton game to complete?"

Raph opened his mouth to respond right as Mrs. Higgins walked to the front of the room and demanded everyone's attention. Her silver bangles jumped from left to right while she waved her bony hand at a few dozing students. They slowly raised their heads and she stared at them over her boxy glasses until they turned their bodies towards her. Satisfied, she crossed her arms over her blue and green patterned dress and took a few steps closer until she was pointedly invading Amanda Shaw's personal bubble.

"Good afternoon everyone. Today we're going to continue working on our self portraits," she said. Her whimsical voice grated on Raph's nerves. "But first I want to discuss a few things that are on the calendar."

Raph drowned her out and started shading in the shadow under his chin with his 5B graphite pencil. Mikey was blatantly watching him to make sure he didn't fuck this one up. He'd already gone through two other outlines of self portraits and had ruined them because he scribbled his face in with a 8B pencil. Mrs. Higgins was already pissed at him for being behind and she didn't bother explaining the different shades of graphite pencils to him. Thankfully, Mikey had made a graphite scale for him. Now he knew which pencils were the lightest and which were the darkest. His brother also explained shading the light and dark parts of the face. After that explanation, Raph had felt a little more confident about his ability to finish his self portrait, even if he knew his would be no where near as good as Mikey's. Hell, Raph's drawing barely resembled him. He was having a ridiculously hard time making his undercut look realistic and he kept fucking up his nose and teeth. Teeth were the devil to draw. They either looked good or they looked cartoony. Raph currently didn't have any drawn in because he'd erased them over ten times.

"How's it going, Raphael?" Mrs. Higgins said from behind him.

Raph jumped in surprise and glanced over his shoulder to see her. Her blue eyes were roaming over the main facial features of his drawing and she started to hum in a displeased sort of way. He could feel his shoulders bunching up in defense the longer she stared.

"You know, it looks like your nose is a little narrower than that. And your lips are kind of…" she spun her fingers in a circular motion to convey her overall "eh" feeling about his drawing skills. Raph shifted in his seat, wishing she would go away and leave him to fix things his way. But no, of course she was going to do more than give criticism.

Mrs. Higgins picked up a regular #2 pencil off the table and started to erase the outline of the self portrait's nose and lips. She then made the corrections she wanted and started to talk about the shadow of the nose. She scribbled little lines in areas where the shadow should be and Raph just wanted to smack her hand away.

"I don't know," he finally mumbled once she looked like she was done. "I kind of liked the nose how it was before. Now it just looks disproportionate."

"No, it was definitely too thick," Mrs. Higgins said. "You just keep working on it, okay?" She walked away to help another student before he could protest.

His leg started bouncing under the table and the ball of frustration in his chest started to spread. He hated being corrected over and over again. Drawing was the one thing he could never get the hang of the first time, or even after a few tries. He just didn't have the patience for it. Mikey was nearly as impatient as him. It was a miracle he was able to work on something that took such a long time to complete. Then again, it probably had to do with the fact that he enjoyed it.

Mikey scooted over and grabbed Raph's reference picture and looked between it and the drawing. "I think she totally screwed up your lips," he said. He grabbed the #2 pencil and erased what she had done. Then he lightly traced the lips back onto the paper. Raph was both jealous and amazed at how easy it was for his brother to draw something that took him a whole class period to do.

"Then I just kind of shade the lines in the lips to make them look more realistic, right?"

"Yeah exactly," Mikey nodded. "Don't make them too thick and dark though."

They both returned to their own drawings. Raph continued shading the lower portion of his body and listened to Mikey talk about the boys vs. girls volleyball tournament they had in fitness. Time started to drag on and eventually Raph found himself staring at his self portrait rather than working on it. The sides of his hands were smeared with graphite and his fingers were sore from putting pressure on the pencils. Still, he felt like he kind of accomplished something by the time he packed all of his things away.

"Buh-bye now. Take care," Mrs. Higgins called out after the bell rang.

Raph exhaled as soon as he was outside of the classroom.

* * *

A/N - Okay so there will be a second chapter where Raph gets kind of fed up and gets explosive. Leo and Don (maybe Splinter) will show up in the next chapter.

Mrs. Higgins is heavily based off of my high school art teacher. She was crazy and drove everyone in my class crazy.

Leave a comment to let me know your thoughts on this chapter. Thanks for reading.


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